Yesterday, the VoIP industry had a victory.  As Mark and Stefan were on the stage of Astricon, they did a demo of their beta allowing Skype to be an in and out experience directly to Asterisk.  They are heading to beta and it is going to be a while before it reachs us. So What?

So enabling free calls between end users and asterisk pbxs has a lot of implications let me give just a few.

Skasterisk In: The ability to build a directory of skype names to extensions can enable better work at home and better productivity solutions.

Skasterisk Out: The ability to use Skype out as a trunk has just made international calling alot easier for the marketplace that did not have enough volume to connect to the clearinghouses.

Skasterisk Me:  All those call centers have a nice easy way to connect with portals and social networks etc all with the Skypme connected to Asterisk.

Skasterisk Trunk:  Several friends said the implication for SIP Trunking was enormous.  SIP trunking that can also support Skype in (yes, you can just enable it in one direction) means that add value has just occured for free.

Skasterisk US: And if we connect DUNDI / ENUM to the mix federation opportunities become interesting again.  I would tell you more, but I have a company working on this already.

Skasterisk Que:  This one is hard to explain, but queing and transferring are not Skypes strong suit.  So Asterisk as a gateway in the cloud just became a valuable addition to the supernode world of Skype.

Skasterisk Clue: From a Regulatory perspective its a great example of the Internet providing a service independent of the existing frameworks and beyond any boundaries.  This is important for the regulators to understand the commercial opportunities and the public good that this ability will create.

I am looking forward to this.